Take My Hand
by Hel-Lokisdotter
Summary: There's a face Jack compares every lover to - pale skin, dark eyes, and a silver ankh around her neck. There's more than one who got away. Jack/Death oneshot, spanning from his first death to his last.


**A/N**: So I was talking to one of my friends, and we discussed what Jack's reaction to Death would be... given that the friend in question hasn't actually read Sandman, I'd suggest that a detailed knowledge of it isn't vital to understand the story, but it doesn't hurt, either.  
Concrit, as always, is welcomed.

_Darkling I listen, and for many a time;  
I have been half in love with easeful Death_  
**~John Keats; _Ode to a Nightingale_**_  
_

The first time Jack dies, he's surprised at waking up to find the Daleks ignoring him. But not as surprised as he is to look down at the little heap of dust and realising without real horror that he can see it _through_ his feet.

"…Damn."

He kicks at the dust, and is unsurprised to find that it doesn't even stir when his foot goes through it.

"_Damn_. What's going on?"

And then someone says his real name, his _true_ name, and he's so surprised he almost forgets to breathe. And then he realises he wasn't actually breathing _anyway_, and the two huge elephants in the room tower over him.

She doesn't _look_ like a Time Agent, he thinks, forcing himself to concentrate on _one_ of the enormous shocks. Then again, they usually don't – and he knows her. He knows he knows her. It's like looking at an old friend, only…

"…Think I'd remember if I ever had a friend quite as gorgeous as you," he finishes out loud, plastering on the patent Jack Harkness FlirtySmirk™.

She just laughs. She's small, and pale, and dressed in a black t-shirt and jeans he wouldn't look twice at in the street. There's something of the Asian about her… but also something of the African, and the Caucasian, and the Hispanic, and the Native American, and really, every human race he's ever come across, including some that won't evolve for another five hundred years. Her hair is black and wild and loose around her face, and when he sees her laugh, Jack falls more than a little in love with her.

He tries to let the _right_ parts of that on his face. "Do I know you, then?"

Her looks might be unplaceable, but her accent is _definitely_ American. "Of course you do," she says, and then she says his real name again and he can't help but flinch. "You know who I am."

Looking down at her, at her fathomless grey eyes (and _fathomless_ isn't a turn of phrase he'd usually think, either), and the silver ankh necklace around her neck, he does. Of course he does. And everything makes sense.

"This is it, then?" The FlirtySmirk™ is all but gone.

"This is it," she agrees, with a smile, and reaches out to him. "Take my hand."

There's something in her voice, impossible to disobey; his fingers close around hers. The world fades and blurs, and is gone. They're standing, now, in a land that seems every bit as black as you would imagine the world of the dead (_I'm _dead_,_ floats through his head, and he shivers), and the woman (or girl, her age seems as indeterminate as her race) is sitting on a large rock nearby.

"Where are we?" he asks, knowing how bloody formulaic it sounds and not much caring.

"The place in between."

"And what happens next?"

"You move on."

He laughs, briefly, almost derisively. "What sort of an answer's that?"

"A true one." She's smiling as she says it, but it makes his blood run cold. "I don't know the real answer. It varies."

"Are the women there going to be as gorgeous as you?" Might as well cut to the important bit, after all. "Or the men?"

She laughs, and it sounds truer, more honest, lighter than anything he's ever heard in his life. "You don't give up, do you? You'll just have to wait and see."

"I hate waiting." Jack puts on a pout. It's tempting to laugh along with her. He's never been so totally swept up by somebody, never.

But she's looking up now, eyes wide, looking back over her shoulder. He follows her eyes, but there's nothing there, just the dark, sweeping plain, stretching out in all directions as far as the eye can see.

"What…" he begins, but she turns to him again, and her smile is gentle and kind.

"You've been reprieved," she says, still with that heartstopping smile.

He knows what she means. He knows the chance he's being given. But it doesn't feel like a reprieve. What if, once he leaves, he never dies again? What if he never gets to see _her_ again? As he turns and follows her pointing finger, his heart feels heavier than ever.

She calls his name after him as he walks on, and although it still sends fear and memory through him with equal viciousness to hear that name, he turns.

"We'll see each other again," she says, the corners of her mouth still turned up. "I promise. Just take care of yourself until then, okay?"

"Okay. I promise," he agrees, and he's smiling, too, but sadly, and turns to walk away again. "And it's Jack, by the way. Captain Jack Harkness."

* * *

The second time Jack dies, shot through the heart in an Ellis Island fight, he doesn't know what to expect. When he sees her face, though, those grey eyes and that smile and the little curl of black under one eye, it all comes rushing back, and his dead heart starts to thud.

"Hey there, beautiful," he says, with a rakish grin and a wink. "We meet again."

"Hi," she says, with a wave, and then adds his true name. Despite his best efforts, his jaw clenches.

"I told you, love, it's Jack now."

"But you're not Jack," she says, in all seriousness. Her grey eyes bore into his, and he has to look away, because she's right. Of course she's right.

After a moment, he clears his throat. "Back to your place, then, is it?" he asks, and the FlirtySmirk™ makes a reappearance… only to vanish abruptly when she shakes her head. "What? I'm _dead_, right?"

"Sort of," she says, with a shrug, and gives him one of those smiles he will always, always compare everyone he loves against, without them knowing – and they will always be judged wanting.

"Sort of?" he repeats now, blinking.

"You promised you'd take care of yourself," she says, by way of reply, and leans up to kiss his cheek, a brush of smooth black lips on rough brown skin. "'Til next time…" and his name again.

"_Jack_!" he calls after her, as the world begins to come back into focus.

And then he wakes up, gasping, with the burn of Death's kiss already starting to fade.

* * *

By the fifth time Jack dies, he's started to anticipate where his real name will come into conversation, and interrupt it.

"Hello again--"

"_Jack_."

She finds that funny, which is another good reason to do it. He loves watching her laugh – and she laughs a _lot_. He imagines the universe would smile like that, if it could. There's something irresistable about that laugh, just as there's something irresistable about all of her. She brings hope. She brings meaning.

If she would just stop using that name, he thinks, she would be perfect.

* * *

The seventh time Jack dies, there's a knife in his back and blood pouring out of his throat, and he goes happy in the knowledge of what's waiting. And, of course, he's not disappointed. She's waiting for him when he opens his eyes, as incongruous as ever in her ripped punk top and black jeans, and he wants nothing more than to be with her forever.

"You're getting careless, Jack," she tells him, and laughs.

"Hey, if death's as gorgeous as you, why should I want to avoid it?" he asks, and tips her the wink, which makes her laugh again. And they talk, and he flirts, and all he wants to do is take her hand. But he knows, knows with absolute certainty, that there would be nothing worse than to take it without her offering.

It's only when she's fading, and his body resumes its familiar pull on him, that he realises she called him Jack.

* * *

Jack loses count of how many times he dies in the year of 1899. She never goes away in all the time that Torchwood have him prisoner, and he half-expects her to be fed up with him. But she stands there, and she waits for him, and that makes it all right again. By the fifth time they kill him, he's no longer even given time to talk to her, but it's enough to be close to her, and to look at her and see her smiling.

It's after that, when he's a free man again, that he can remember her. For the first time, he knows what death is when he's alive.

And for that, he has Torchwood to thank.

* * *

The worst time Jack dies is in 1995, and it's worst because she isn't smiling. It's the first time in a hundred and fifty years that Jack's seen her unhappy, and it hits him like a shot to the chest. His body lies at his feet, with its head slowly regenerating from the stump of his neck, but he's learnt to ignore it by now.

His chest is tight as he looks at her. The scariest moment in his long, long life, the worst moment he will ever know, is when she begins to fade, long before he goes back to his body.

"I have to go," she says, and her grey eyes are unspeakably sad. "He'll call me soon. I have to be there."

And then she's gone, and she leaves him there, alone and tired and afraid without his body. He feels small and weak and alone. Later, it will affect him so much that he will not let himself die for almost four years. Now, though, all he can do is sit down, gingerly, by his body's side, and wait to be himself again. And when he is alive again, for the first time, it's relief that floods in first.

He has strange dreams that night. He forgets them on waking.

* * *

The strangest time Jack dies, without a doubt, is during his confrontation with Abaddon, and it is so strange because he can see her before he's dead, her form clearer and stronger and more obvious as the rest of the world fades. He spends three days afterwards talking to her, on and off. She's never gone for long, and she always comes back. He's as close to happy as he ever has been.

He learns things he's never known – about himself, about others, about the world. She tells him things only she knows, and things everyone understands without realising. She tells him things he never wants to forget, and she tells him that he will forget them.

At the end of the third day, at last, he dares to ask. And she tells him. She tells him what happened, all those years ago. She tells him why she left him.

"I thought it was a dream," he says numbly, when she's finished.

Her eyes are dark and serious. She looks up at him, and she isn't smiling, but she's still beautiful. "Of course it was a dream," she says softly. "He was the King of Dreams."

He doesn't have an answer for that. But he leans in close, not touching her. His lips are within an inch of hers. If either of them were breathing, he would be able to feel that warmth on his lips… but neither of them ever breathes when they are together.

His eyes slide closed. _Half in love with easeful death_? he thinks, not smiling. _Keats didn't know the half of it_… And then there are lips on his, but they are not so smooth as hers, and when he opens his eyes, surprised, it's Gwen Cooper's face he sees. The skin is too dark, the eyes too light, the hair too smooth.

For the first time in his life, Jack Harkness regrets a kiss.

* * *

The two thousand and eighty-ninth time Jack dies, he is holding Ianto close, and Ianto is with him when he rises to meet her.

"Jack?" Ianto looks at him, frightened and sad, and then at her. "What's happening?"

"Can't I go with him?" Jack asks her, his hand in Ianto's. It isn't the first time he's asked her, and it won't be the last, but the answer is always the same; a shake of the head, a sad little smile from her. It breaks his heart, every time.

"I'm sorry, Jack," she says, and steps towards them, and she isn't lying. He doesn't think she's ever lied. But that doesn't stop it from huting. This is the worst moment, when he loses two loves at once, and knows that one, at least, is gone forever. This is the worst moment, because he feels that stab of jealousy.

Ianto's hand is tight in his. Pulling Ianto towards him, Jack kisses him one last time, tears wet on his cheeks. "I'm sorry," he murmurs, and lets him go. "I won't forget you."

"Ianto?" She's closer now. Jack feels weak, tired, superfluous. Her eyes are on Ianto, not him, and Ianto's eyes are on her.

And Jack watches their hands clasp. Watches them disappear and leave him behind.

* * *

The last time Jack dies, it is billions of years since the first time he met her, and millenia since the last. The city has collapsed around him, like Earth before it, but he has a chance to save it. A chance he has to take.

He has almost forgotten her. All that remains is an impression of dark eyes, pale skin, and a smile that holds whole universes. He no longer remembers her identity. He can hardly remember his own. But he remembers the Doctor, and he remembers what he needs to do. And he brings all his strength together to speak, speak aloud as he has not for so, so long.

"You are not alone."

And nor is he.

He sees her there as the eyes of his body close and the eyes of his self open. She stands behind the Doctor, looking unchanged, unaffected by the march of time which has caught up with even him, in the end. Still that same age, whatever that age is, young and beautiful and smiling. Still those same kinds of clothes, black t-shirt and jeans, although this time she has a leather jacket that's very eighties, and a top hat. Still the same silver ankh, the most constant aspect of such a constant being.

Not immortal, but eternal. Not unending, but endless. And he loves her more than ever.

"Hello, Captain," she says, and she's smiling.

He steps out of his body. The coat that was destroyed a billion lifetimes ago is swinging around his legs. "Beautiful as ever," he whispers, taking a couple of strides towards her. The Doctor and the doctor and the nurse are all still kneeling around him, statues frozen in time. "I missed you."

As he says it, he knows how true it is. Every smile, every eye, every boy, girl, man, or woman he's ever known has been compared to her, and the only one he thinks might know her even a little is the Doctor.

"I know," she says, and smiles. She hasn't moved, but she's closer to him.

"Am I still Jack?" he asks, quietly.

She laughs. That laugh, he has _never_ forgotten. In millenia of millenia, he has never heard anyone laugh so clearly, so carelessly, or so wisely.

"You told me once that it was what you wanted to be," she says. "But if you'd rather…" Then she says his true name, the name that he forgot so long ago, and, for old time's sake, he gives a theatrical shudder.

She laughs again. He lets himself be carried along by the sound; lets himself laugh along.

"Captain Jack Harkness," he says after a moment, tasting the name again. "I liked being Jack best, I think. Is this it, then?"

"This is it," she agrees.

"Can I ask you just one question, before we go?"

"Shoot." She grins at him.

"You know all my names. Everyone I've ever been. So… who am I really?"

For a moment, she looks thoughtful, quiet. Then she looks up at him again. "Do you remember what I told you after Abaddon?"

He can only shake his head. He hardly remembers _Abaddon_, after so long, although her presence makes memory sharper and his thoughts stronger, more powerful. "Can you say it again?"

A laugh. She pushes her hair back, smiling. "People do evil things, Jack. They do good things. They take on different shapes and different personalities and different names. But they do all of it for the best reasons, and their identities might change, but their selves never do. And eventually, they all come to me. Do you understand, now?"

And he does. Somehow, astonishingly, he does. He understands everything.

"Jack?" she says softly, and he opens his eyes to see her reaching out to him. "Take my hand."


End file.
